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All Aboard

“I want to ask you out on a date,” Steve said to me. “What are you doing Saturday?”

“Haven’t we already been on a date?” I asked. “We hung out every day last week. Do you really have to ask me out officially?” I was new at dating in New York, but I was fairly sure that it was like dating anywhere else. Anywhere else, that is, on the East coast, where everything is either permanently casual or speed-dating. So Steve asking me out seemed like an unnecessary formality.

“No, I mean all day Saturday. I’m planning a day for us,” he said excitedly.

Oh.

When I imagine all-day Saturday dates, very specific images fill my head: big brown wicker picnic baskets splayed open on blankets, their contents being fed to me, my eyes romantically locked with my lover’s; or running through a field holding hands; or making out next to or underneath a waterfall. These are the all-day Saturday dates I imagine, not that any of them have ever happened to me. I spend most Saturdays with people I’m dating at the mall. Or drinking. These are activities I feel comfortable with: shopping, beer consumption. They aren’t grandly romantic, but they never fail to bring two people together.

Adding to the stress of my first big, romantic date was that Steve wouldn’t tell me what we were doing. I was to come to his house, just down the street from mine, and we’d go from there. I don’t do spontaneous very well. I need to know, for instance, what kind of shoes I should be wearing. Every activity has a corresponding shoe; if I don’t know what I’m doing, how can I possibly pick the right one? It’s not just shoes, though, it’s everything. I like to know what’s happening at all times so that I can be prepared. Steve’s instructions—to meet at his house, not knowing if we were going horseback riding or snorkeling or fly-fishing—made me nervous.

It wasn’t until we were on the train that he finally divulged the first part of his plan for our date: a picnic in the park, complete with a blanket and the perfect setting. I like picnics and I was comfortable with Steve, but if this had been a first date I would have been in my own personal hell. There’s just so much pressure when it comes to being romantic.

When we finished eating, he let me in on the next part of our day together, which was to be row boating at the Reservoir in Central Park. Now, to my straight-girl roommates, this would be a date made in heaven. In their minds, the only better date would be if they were whisked off to Cartier’s in a helicopter. If no helicopters were available, however, it would be a boat ride. And here I was, on the boat.

I’m not like my straight-girl roommates. The idea of getting on a boat that I’m going to have to figure out how to row made me feel ridiculous. Conspicuous. Stared-at. Whether or not people would actually be looking at me, I knew I’d feel like I was wearing assless chaps and a big pink sandwich sign that said something like “Please do not feed the homosexuals.” And here we were, in Central Park of all places, actually rowing a boat.

It’s not that it wasn’t nice--once I got over myself and my neuroses and just enjoyed Steve’s company I had a great time. As with most things that I’ve dreaded but have eventually forced myself into--that trapeze class, for instance--it turned out to be something that I was glad I’d done, though I probably never need to do it again. What, then, was my problem? Why couldn’t I deal with Steve’s undeniably thoughtful, well-planned day for us?

I am, apparently, too jaded for grand romantic gestures. There was a point in my life when I would’ve thrilled at the idea of someone planning a day with me. Could it be that years of expecting too little from men has made me unable to expect anything? That I have no idea how to respond to so much because I’m used to accepting so little?

Why should I feel ridiculous because a man wants to make me happy, wants to take me, for at least an afternoon, out of the shell I’ve built for myself? I’ve spent 26 years in this shell, so maybe it’s time to try something different.

Like a boat ride in Central Park.